Riding the Scree

Struggling down the slope  
There's not much hope 
I begin to try to ride the scree  
But the rocks are tumbling all around me

— Riding the Scree, Genesis

So it's been 21 days since we last posted, three full weeks.  Life does indeed get in the way.  What's happened over those past three weeks?

We coordinated 380 new or revised course descriptions and a completely new course numbering system leading to a top-to-bottom revision of our curricula for thirteen of our sixteen degree programs.  The website has to be accurate as of next weekend.

 

We had a huge housewarming weekend for about 50 people.

 

We had a student die, another hit by a car but likely to recover.

 

We've driven about 1,400 miles back and forth between Medford and Middletown and Medford and Middletown and Medford and Middletown and Medford and Rutland and Middletown and Manchester and Middletown and Poultney and Middletown...

We wrote a white paper and Board briefing for another college's fundraising plans.

We booked a trip to Venice over New Year's.

 

We installed (and filled) a new bookcase, cleared out the office, set up and transferred files to a new computer, connected the printer and the fax/scanner.

We accepted speaking engagements in Florida and in California for the spring.

 

We had a friend diagnosed with cancer, and another friend's friend die of cancer, and another friend's friend die after a sixty-year relationship, and another friend's daughter in the hospital, and another friend's daughter leave an abusive relationship.

We set up an experimental method for comparing the heating efficiency of different brands of wood pellets.

We continued to deal with Mom's legal and material artifacts.

We coached a thesis student toward design development, in his project of designing a very large church on a very small site in central Boston.

We did demographic analysis aimed at uncovering likely enrollment trends for the next four years, and a comparative analysis of time to graduation and cost of degree against peer institutions.

We harvested all the last of the basil and tomatoes and parsley, made a couple of pounds of pesto and calculated the cost of production (secret business plan...shhh...)

 

We supported colleagues as they endured the lurching priorities of supposed leadership.

We ate pancakes shaped like butterflies and turtles and palm trees.

We taught six sessions of two courses, and built out a rubric for end-of-semester evaluation of all first-year students, and taught that rubric to co-instructors.

We built our first bonfire in the backyard firepit, taught a ten-year-old how to flip potatoes and spices in a mixing bowl without a spoon, made S'Mores and lit sparklers (estrellitas), and remembered how much fun it is to set random stuff on fire.

We watched a presidential and a vice-presidential debate, and read and listened to a lot of news.

 

We designed and conducted and did data analysis on a huge questionnaire of student desires for design software and digital fabrication equipment.

 

We've responded to approximately 400 or so e-mails, and left far too many not yet addressed (e-mail is the kudzu of contemporary life — it originally resolved a problem, but has since devoured the forest and become its own problem).

 

We took two air conditioners down out of two windows in two different cities on the same day.

We decided whether or not to buy a set of flannel sheets (yes) and a pickup truck (no) and a set of professional-quality billiard balls (yes).

We had a cold and a sore back and a migraine and not enough sleep, and left one of our prescriptions in the wrong state.

 

We got a haircut, and cleaned cat vomit off the back seat of a car.

 

We went to a concert, showed friends how to spin yarn, and discovered a huge variety of mushrooms in the woods behind our house.

So we didn't want you to feel as though we were neglecting our duties.  It's not as though we've been hanging out on the porch sipping umbrella drinks through bendy straws.  Sounds nice, though.